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Author Archives: mzrc10

So, with WWE’s announcement of the first all women PPV, I thought it would be fun to make an ideal card for the show. It’s likely going to be a card that doesn’t happen because WWE will take the time to push their mediocre white blondes down our throat even further, but fans of actually good women’s wrestlers can dream, right? So keep in mind that while Charlotte and/or Alexa Bliss will probably find themselves in a featured spot on this show because of nepotism, the rest of us will put them in a participation trophy battle royal because we know that’s where their skill level dictates that they belong. #CharlotteAndAlexaAreBarelyBetterThanTheBellas2018

And keep in mind that, while WWE is going to constantly pat themselves on the back for doing this show since they’re really just doing it to make themselves look good and that in itself sucks – a majority of the women absolutely do deserve this show to exist. They have plenty of exceptionally talented women that don’t get to have the spotlight over the Charlotte’s and Alexa’s of the world even though they’re better than them by leaps and bounds, so this show is important for them to have an equal spotlight that they should have on them all the time. Also keep in mind that while WWE’s over promotion can be annoying that representation matters and that while it may not seem like a big deal to you, that it does for many others.

And if you’re going to be one of those idiots who are all like “WELL WHAT ABOUT AN ALL MEN PPV” may I direct you to the Greatest Royal Rumble, and more specifically, MOST OF THE ATTITUDE ERA where they chose not to include women themselves so stop with your misogynist bullshit and take your claims of reverse sexism (which, like reverse racism, does not exist) and shove it up your ass as you fall off a cliff to your death. Your existence is no longer required and you make wrestling fans look bad. Also fuck WWE for putting this show during Susan G. Komen month because we know that’s a scam.

Anyways, now that the PSA is over, on to the card itself. Since legends are likely to be on the show, I shall include them. I know the idea of a women’s tag title belt has been thrown around recently, but since I doubt this will be implemented before October is over, I’m not including the titles on the show. Also we don’t know if there will be one set of belts or two.

WWE Raw Women’s Championship
Ronda Rousey (c) vs. Ruby Riott

WWE Smackdown Women’s Championship
Becky Lynch (c) vs. Asuka

NXT Women’s Championship
Kairi Sane (c) vs. Candice LeRae

NXT UK Women’s Championship
Jinny vs. Killer Kelly vs. Charlie Morgan

MYC Finals
Io Shirai vs. Toni Storm

Sasha Banks vs. Trish Stratus

Ember Moon vs. Bayley

The IIconics vs. Liv Morgan and Sarah Logan
(If there are tag titles, this can be the match for them)

Dakota Kai vs. Shayna Baszler

Nikki Cross vs. Victoria

Bianca Belair vs. Beth Phoenix

Charlotte and Alexa Bliss vs. The Bella Twins
(Kills four birds with one stone)

It’s a shame that it’s come to this. It really is. A little more than a year ago, I never would have thought I’d be about to make this post – but WWE and a fuckton of psychopaths have forced my hand.

If you’re one of the zero people who regularly reads my blog, you may be able to recall a particular post of mine called Bellageddon. Well, I’m not exactly sure what this post will be called as of now because I’m probably not going to use this for the title – but this is essentially Alexageddon or Blissageddon. However, I intend to come up with a different title than that.

I’m honestly not even sure I’m happy that I’m making this post. There was a time that I was a fan of Alexa Bliss. A pretty big one, too. I was never a fan of the Bellas and that post I have absolutely no remorse for. And I’m not really going to have remorse for this either – but I’m disappointed that it’s gotten this far. It’s disappointing that this overpush has been so overbearing.

The thing is, the Alexa push is a symptom of a larger problem – a problem we’ll get to a bit later. And in fact, maybe Charlotte deserves this post even more than Alexa does, because at least Alexa has a good quality or two in comparison to Charlotte – and some others in the company, too, in all fairness. But I think it’s the fact that I used to be a fan that makes what’s happened with Alexa to be such a disappointment because in the ideal world this wouldn’t have happened and I could still be a fan. Charlotte on the other hand – I could make the post, but she’s a lost cause entirely and I’m not sure she’s worth my time. I would at least like to believe Alexa Bliss could be fixed – she won’t be, but it would be nice.

But, since I was at one point a fan – I can’t make this exactly like I made the Bella one. We will have to talk about when I was a fan, how things went wrong, and then how it’s spiraled out of control. I realize I could title this post now “No Longer a Fan Since Day One” because I was once a fan when she was first a thing – so that falls into my fan since day one post definition – but obviously that’s no longer the case.

So, let’s begin, shall we?

We first saw Alexa Bliss in NXT after she turned heel at NXT Takeover: Unstoppable, helping Blake and Murphy retain the tag team titles against Enzo and Cass. We’re going to ignore that Sparkle Cheerleader face Alexa Bliss was ever a thing – go with me here. (Trust me, we don’t need to talk about it. It was nothing.) She became an effective heel manager, known mainly for her facial expressions. There’s nothing bad to say there – she had matches at times but never won the NXT Women’s Title – probably because in NXT they know how to evaluate their talent and know who the title belongs on 99% of the time – and they knew she was not ready for it. Sure she was good at managing and had matches against other women who could carry her, but she never got the title or even a title match at Takeover. Because NXT knows who is ready and who is not. But at least she can say she was the second most talented member of Blake and Murphy and Bliss. (Sorry Blake.)

Alexa Bliss was called up in the draft after the brand split in 2016. She was called up too early, but so were Carmella and Nia Jax, and while she and Carmella have always been roughly at the same skill level, they’re both loads better than Nia Jax so I guess you can’t argue about her callup if Nia Jax made it that early. And both brands needed to have a decent amount of women on the roster to sustain them – even though they should never have had separate divisions to begin with. I’m not one that believes they should have two titles – they should have one division where everyone is in it, or two but the champion is on both shows.

Alexa did well as a heel on the Smackdown roster and had decent matches. She cut good promos – no matter if you like her or hate her, you cannot deny her promo ability. She started to get built up as Becky won the title and while Becky had several successful title defenses – even one against Bliss – Alexa ultimately won the title from Becky at TLC 2016.

Alexa’s matches with Becky I would probably consider the best in Alexa’s career. It’s the last time I would probably say I enjoyed one of her matches. That and the first one with Bayley but I remember I missed part of that match. But I enjoyed the Becky/Alexa feud, they had decent matches that ultimately ended in a cage match where Mickie James returned to help Alexa.

Sort of the last bastion of my being a fan of Bliss before things started to go wrong for her was her feud with Naomi. I’ve never been a big fan of Naomi. If you’ve read the Bella post you probably know that. And around this time I liked Bliss and very much disliked Naomi*. I remember when their title match happened I was PISSED. When I tell you that I was once an Alexa Bliss fan – I really meant it. I felt like Alexa’s title reign had just started and Naomi just kind of got a random push for whatever reason and I had “Obvious title retention” penciled in and was pissed when it didn’t happen. I was so angry and I was arguing with my supervisor about it because he loved Naomi and didn’t like Bliss. (And then two months later he was in love with Bliss and indifferent on Naomi.)

*I’ve since calmed down on Naomi, but I wouldn’t say I’m a fan. Naomi has the potential for me to like her, there’s just some things about her offense that put me off and I could do without the entrance. But I’ll certainly take her over a number of others.

Naomi was injured in this match (more later) and Alexa regained the title after winning the vacated title in a match against Becky. (I was rooting for Becky though because Becky is the best Becky number one.) But, ultimately, Alexa walked into Mania 33 and lost the title back to Naomi.

Alexa would then be shaken up over to Raw a week later, and shortly after, that’s where things start to go wrong. Alexa immediately wins the Raw Women’s Title from Bayley in Bayley’s hometown – because if you wrestle in your hometown you will lose – and became the first person to hold both brands’ women’s titles. That’s fine considering the only other potential option for that honor was Charlotte and we will take Alexa over Charlotte every time when it comes to undeserved accolades. It was fine at the time because WWE had already screwed up with Bayley as it was – she’d won the title with help, then refused to hand the title over when Stephanie McMahon requested her to do so – something the Bayley character (a pure babyface that does no wrong) would never do. So it’s not the fact that she won the title from Bayley – it’s what comes next.

And now since we’re getting to the real part of this post, it should come as a disclaimer that this post is about Alexa Bliss the character, and WWE’s booking of her. Some of the fault lies on her. Some of the fault lies on the booking. Some of the fault lies on the person who plays Alexa Bliss. There is, of course, a difference – and I want to make that clear before some fool tries to get mad at me and post in the nonexistent comment section about “Oh well that’s the character” or “that’s the booking” because we know this. That is obvious. This post is an amalgamation of all the problems pertaining to Alexa Bliss, and I expect you, the reader, to be bright enough to know that when I criticize something – I’m criticizing the responsible party. If I were to say “the content of her promos are repetitive” then you should realize that I am criticizing the writers – not her. If I were to say “she delivers her promos poorly” (something I don’t believe as we already know, but for argument’s sake) then I am criticizing her. I know the difference, don’t jump in pretending I don’t. And I expect you to realize that this post is not “anti-Alexa” or any shit like that. I want her to succeed in her proper place on the show – the problem is that she has been pushed far past where her talent currently dictates she should be. And that is what matters. Everyone should be judged only by their level of talent and that alone – I know this company is full of shit and talents are judged due to many factors that they should not be – there’s plenty of bullshit like that in the world and WWE/wrestling is no different. There will be no judging of Alexa because of her gender, size, anything like that. Only judgment of her character, booking, talent, etc.

In the rest of this post, there will be a lot of “What could have been” and long standing consequences of Alexa’s push – how we could have had far better television, how her push has damaged other talent, and how, in an era where we’re supposed to be past this kind of stuff, her wrestling and stories are mostly Diva level bullshit – among other things.

But first, before we get to the real meat of this post, some related reading if you so desire:

By now if you haven’t heard of Bayley, This is Your Life, you have been living under a rock or are not a wrestling fan. It was one of those god awful segments the likes of Bobby Lashley’s sisters, the Old Day, Megan Miller, and so on. You know those awful kinds of segments WWE does on occasion that everyone knows is going to be awful before it even happens – I saw a tweet that described these four as the 4 segments of the apocalypse and that is accurate.

This segment is the first part of a one-two punch that, to go along with the whole “Bayley not handing over the title” thing, buried Bayley to the point where she can’t be taken seriously anymore. If you haven’t seen this segment – go watch it. I promise you’ll live, but only just.

The amount of cringe in this segment, all the while Alexa bombing the whole time. What chants, boring chants, this is awful chants. Bayley’s teacher’s last name is inexplicably “Flapper” and her boyfriend and friend keep bringing up her father as if he’s constantly around her. They clearly don’t even follow their own canon, because for someone who always accompanies Bayley everywhere she goes, her father is sure absent from all of the documentaries/behind the scenes specials WWE has done about NXT/the women’s revolution – it’s literally just her mom that’s there every time.

But all of that silly stuff aside, because those criticisms are just of those people and we need something more relevant. Alexa, in this segment and throughout the feud, criticizes Bayley because her “lifelong dream has been to be a WWE superstar” and that she couldn’t go out with her friends because she had to stay home to watch Raw and Smackdown.

Why are you, someone inside WWE, making fun of someone because they watch WWE? THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? Yes, how dare they want to watch the program you are currently on! How dare they want to work where you currently work! Come on Alexa – you’re making it look like someone who has a life long dream of working where both of you work is weird and it’s only okay for someone who stumbled into wrestling when it was never their passion before this is the only way to go…..Oh wait, I get it, that’s your story so obviously your experience is universal to others. I’m sorry, but we’ll stick with the people who’ve been passionate about this their entire life much more than someone who just decided they like this because the people in the back will push them for reasons other than talent.

It’s unfortunate that Bayley didn’t get in the ring and just say “I have no idea who these people are” so she saves face.

Anyways, they go on to have a Kendo Stick on a pole match at Extreme Rules – a match built on “Can Bayley get extreme?” – and it turns out, she couldn’t. She picked up the Kendo Stick but could not use it, and immediately lost in a five minute match – burying her.

These two things happened six days apart, and it killed the Bayley character. It literally took her up until this past week for her to gain any semblance of credibility back and it’s been over a year since this happened. Bayley – one of the foremothers (if that isn’t a word it is now) of the women’s revolution – the woman who is probably the face of the women’s division if you asked a fan, despite what WWE would have you believe it’s Charlotte – someone who was the female John Cena except universally loved, and is legitimately great in the ring, and was essentially a license to print money for WWE – became nothing. WWE sacrificed what should have been a cash cow for them and a source of excellent women’s matches for us at the altar of Alexa Bliss and for what? A year’s worth of decent promos and mediocre matches at best?? Poor choice.

And this is the biggest problem with Alexa’s promos in general. Sure, most of them are delivered well when we’re not doing awful This is Your Life segments, but they turn out to ALWAYS be right. If you want to see an honest character in WWE – it’s Alexa Bliss. And if that sounds like a positive, it isn’t. She’s a HEEL. Regardless of who people like and people liking heels and all of that – WWE’s goal is to create villains for you to boo and faces for you to cheer for – and while Roman is the prime example of them pushing someone as a face improperly, Alexa is the same on the opposite side of the coin. If everything Alexa says comes to pass, why should I root for her opponent? Why should I cheer the face? If Alexa says Bayley can’t get extreme, and then Bayley can’t – why shouldn’t I believe what Alexa says and root for her?

This is the first of multiple instances of this. And if Alexa will never get her comeuppance, then she is completely ineffective as a heel because that is her purpose. She, as a heel, is there to sell for the babyfaces and make them look good. And if you can’t serve your purpose, then you have no reason to be here. We’ll get more into the comeuppance and selling things later – because undoubtedly WWE thinks Nia Jax and inevitably Ronda Rousey have and/or will be her comeuppance, but if this comeuppance comes from others who don’t deserve it, it’s still completely ineffective. But for now, we move on.

Before we get to the next feud, it should be pointed out that somewhere in here Alexa’s alliance with Nia Jax starts. They start off mainly as an A.J. Lee and Tamina ripoff and not much more – Alexa has a mouth like A.J. with about half the promo ability and even starts sitting on the ropes like A.J. did, and Nia – well I guess you could argue Nia has more than half the talent Tamina does – I’m not wasting my time on that argument. But quite clearly, Alexa, you will never be A.J. – neither on the mic nor in the ring. It’s just funny that I find myself on the opposite side of this war against an AJ Lee-type character because I so long had to fight the AJ Lee vs. Bellas war, but it’s simple because AJ was so far superior to the Bellas and the AJ Lee type character in this one is so far inferior to the counterparts she’s taking away time from. And while AJ > Alexa is a given, and while I’m a huge AJ Lee fan, it still should be noted that as much as I love AJ, that she is no Sasha or Becky or Bayley, etc., in the ring, either. But she’s from right before this generation, so while her ring work was 100% better than those in the division with her at the time, the best women in the division are on a completely different level. That’s not A.J.’s fault, though, and she could still have tremendous matches with them if given the time.

Sasha Banks

Moving on from Bayley, Alexa Bliss moves into a feud with the next obvious challenger, Sasha Banks. It’s no surprise that with Becky and Charlotte on Smackdown, the next person to move on to after Bayley was Sasha, who won the #1 contendership in a gauntlet match. Now, some will say that all of the four horsewomen hate Alexa and view her as an outsider and so on – to that I say, the only one who might actually hate her is Sasha Banks. Charlotte has too much nepotism for her to care, and while Becky may have been more personal with her in promos, it’s clear that she and Bayley only do in character. Sasha on the other hand is the one that will get real with you – because she is constantly in character on and off tv and sees things for how they are. That’s how she gets a bad rap from the entitled male section of the entire wrestling fanbase (mainly because she hates stalkers and naturally the stalkers then blame her for themselves being terrible human beings).

So it’s not a surprise that the promos were more personal, because Sasha sees Alexa as she is – a little girl trying to play wrestler, not someone who is actually passionate about the business. And it should also be no surprise, this is where the stan war comes in. The AJ vs. Bellas stan war continues, but in this day and age, it’s now the Sasha stans vs. Alexa stans – the Sasha ones who actually enjoy women’s wrestling and the Alexa stans who are still trying to regress back to the Diva Era. Sasha represents women’s wrestling, Alexa represents the dark ages because she fits right into that era that the rest of us are trying to get away from.

The Blissfits like to blame Sasha for “breaking Alexa’s nose” back when Alexa was Sparkle Cheerleader Bliss (you know, the dark times no one talks about) because Alexa had a grand total of zero fans at the time so the fact that people are throwing a bitch fit over something years before they actually cared is quite comical. It’s even funnier because Alexa broke her nose because she herself forgot to put her hands out to stop her face from hitting the mat so hard, so it’s entirely her fault that [Alexa] broke her nose – it may explain why she’s so insistent on not bumping these days, though. (More later.)

The first match between them was fine, I suppose. It ended in a countout because it was on Great Balls of Fire and we can’t do big title wins on non-major shows. But the second match was at SummerSlam, and it was again, just alright. It was mainly just Bliss dominating most of it for the face to come back and win – which is what they do mostly. It wasn’t memorable, to be honest. In fact, the only thing I remember about this match is that someone was arrogant/ignorant enough to tell me that “Alexa outworked Sasha” in this match and it’s ten months later and I still haven’t stopped laughing about it. Blissfits are that sad that they think that a match that was designed for the heel to dominate and the face to come back and win means that Alexa “outworked” someone because she did more moves or something, as if that’s what “outwork” means.

We’re going to need a wrestling terminology lesson in this post, too:

Doing more moves than someone doesn’t mean you “outworked” someone, but please try to tell me how you think wrestling is real, apparently. Every part of the match is part of the work – doing moves, taking moves, selling, working the crowd, etc., and Sasha naturally was doing all of that while Alexa did some moves and worked a crowd. And the fact that someone could think that someone who is quite clearly not as talented as Sasha “outworked” her is hilarious. Practically everyone in the women’s division outworks Alexa – saying otherwise is flat out disrespectful. (I imagine this Blissfit is the same fan that said that Nikki Bella once “carried” Paige. LMAO) Remember folks, talent is objective – whether you like someone or hate someone, their level of talent is the same. I love Sasha Banks. Sasha Banks is one of the best wrestlers in the world. These second statement is true regardless of the first statement. I don’t like Alexa Bliss. She’s an average wrestler but is fairly good on the mic. The second statement is not dependent on the first. Stop judging wrestlers’ ability based on your opinion on whether you like them or not.

Now that the wrestling terminology lesson is over, we get back to Alexa’s promos and how they’re a problem.

Remember how I said that Alexa is honest because what she says comes to pass every single time? And because of that, she never gets her comeuppance? Well, what do you think Alexa says about Sasha the next night? Well, obviously that she won the title three times but has never successfully defended it, because, like they had to sacrifice Bayley to the altar of Alexa Bliss, they had to sacrifice Sasha Banks at the hands of Charlotte and her precious PPV streak. (Something they threw away to Bayley a month BEFORE WrestleMania, btw. Good planning. But they gotta make those mediocre white blondes look strong.)

So Sasha loses her title on her first defense again because WWE doesn’t know what they’re doing. Yet again, Alexa is proven right, her comeuppance never comes, and her usefulness as a heel is completely nonexistent. Not only that, but immediately Nia Jax turns on Alexa for the first time which leads to nothing whatsoever because they become friends again within a month – making it completely stupid that they squashed the Sasha story to begin with. If they’d been intelligent, there’d have been a dirty finish here where Sasha keeps it but Alexa still has a claim to it, so they have another PPV match where Sasha wins normally and moves on. But WWE is dumb, so we move on with mediocrity instead.

Emma

Okay so I know what you’re saying – Emma and Alexa are both heels and never feuded with each other. But this isn’t so much about a feud as it is a missed opportunity. This part isn’t indicative of just Alexa Bliss, but also the women WWE pushes on a constant basis. WWE loves to push Charlotte. WWE loves to push Alexa Bliss. Mandy Rose is now a thing even though she’s so awful she doesn’t even belong on tv. Natalya. Lana. Lacey Evans. Dana Brooke. Carmella. White. Blonde. Most of them tall. All of them average or worse. Some of them have some good qualities (Carmella, Lana) but most of them, not so much. Just like they have a type with the dudes they push, they have a type with the women they push too.

And then there’s the women who fit most of this mold but get nothing. Right now we have Candice LeRae, but she’s safe in NXT for now. And we have Toni Storm, who isn’t quite in NXT yet.

But a year ago, we had Emma. And this ties into Alexa because Alexa was the only one of the five listed above that were on Raw at the same time as Emma.

So, Emma, like Alexa Bliss, is blonde, is good on the mic, and is good looking. (In fact, way hotter.) Unlike Alexa, Emma is tall, is exceptional in the ring, and can play any character. Not only that, but like Alexa Bliss has a good comeback story after having dealt with anorexia in her real life – which is great – Emma also has a great comeback story and it’s actually related to wrestling!

In Emma’s own words: “Six months ago today I couldn’t bend over to put my shoes on. I couldn’t lift my arms up to get dressed. I couldn’t hold my hand up to do my makeup. I couldn’t sit stand or walk without pain. I knew it was bad when I realized all these things weren’t going away and when the left side of my spine and neck started to constantly spasm. It was even more scary finding out I needed surgery on my spine right away because the spasms and the weakness in my left arm were from nerve damage from the herniated disc pressing on my spinal cord. But in that instant all I could think was that I was lucky I wasn’t paralyzed! Six months ago I had surgery and you can see the removed disc above.”

Emma was nearly paralyzed and fought for a year to come back – and what did they do with her? They tried to push her as some bullshit Emmalina gimmick just because she was posting hot bikini photos on Instagram or something, even though she had the perfect character down as it was before this. They delayed that for forever, and then when they decided to debut her as this, they decided to scrap it because they “decided she couldn’t play the character” even though it was the character that was trash and she could play anything you give her.

You could have been pushing Emma in the exact same spot they were pushing Alexa, and we could have gotten better stories, better promos, and better matches. Instead, they continued to waste Emma’s talent and time until they released her so she could go to promotions that actually appreciate her and not waste her time and talent. That’s why Tenille Dashwood is killing it on the indies and there’s no longer any Emma in WWE.

Mickie James

So after the Sasha feud ended, which somehow ended in a five way match because feuds totally end in five way matches, Alexa suddenly entered a feud with…..Mickie James? Because Mickie James was relevant at the time so….?? But I guess since Alexa said something about Mickie on the post-PPV Raw talk about Mickie that we have to get a month long feud out of it. (Even though a month ago Nia had turned on Alexa and presumably that was supposed to mean something?)

This feud was completely pointless. Were we supposed to think Mickie James was going to take the title from Alexa Bliss when she’d done fuck all for six months? And not only that – you might think that I’d already hated Alexa by this point because of what I’ve already written, but you’d be wrong. I had some spite for her, yes, but it was actually this feud that ruined her beyond the point of no return. But we’ll get to that.

Remember the Alexa promo problem? Well, let’s see – she called Mickie James run down and not able to hang with the competitors of today.

What does Mickie do to disprove this? Um, well, she calls Alexa Biscuit Butt – because apparently we reached a time post-Women’s Revolution where we have women making fun of each other’s body parts which is so totally feminist of them and not some diva era bullshit – and then she loses to Alexa twice.

And the second time she lost in the main event. To a slap. Or a punch. It doesn’t matter which, it’s awful.

That is some – say it with me now – DIVA ERA LEVEL BULLSHIT.

This is not Alexa’s “character” no matter how many times someone tries to tell you it is. This is just bullshit. I don’t care if this is the finish you were given. This is some year 2000 WWE video game standard diva finisher bullshit. The “Woman’s Special Slap,” remember? This is what Alexa Bliss just did. It is indefensible in the year 2018 to have that be the finish of a main event title match.

Any chance of you making me take Alexa Bliss seriously again without serious repacking and improvement went out the window once she won a match with a slap-punch to retain the title in the main event of Raw. Because when you do this, you’re telling me that a slap from Alexa Bliss – someone who clearly isn’t THAT physically strong – can knock out someone bigger than her with a slap-punch – and I cannot suspend my disbelief for that. I can buy Asuka knocking someone out with a kick. Maybe a punch from Nia. That’s about it. Alexa couldn’t do that with a fist alone. It’s kind of like when they tried for over a year to make us think that Nikki Bella’s forearm thingy that looked weak as fuck was a devastating maneuver.

So Alexa’s in ring credibility – whatever credibility she had – is completely gone. And she’s done nothing since then to recover from it.

Charlotte

Okay, so there’s really nothing much to say about the “feud” with Charlotte because it’s just a pointless interpromotional match at Survivor Series that means nothing. But, I’ll give Alexa this – as much as I don’t like her, I will always pick Bliss over Charlotte any time you give me this option. That doesn’t really make Alexa a good choice, it just means that Charlotte is way, way worse. Again, a post about her is perhaps even MORE well deserved than this one, but that’s not worth my time for several reasons.

In the end, I know that WWE will put Charlotte over every other woman on the roster- no matter who they are and no matter who they look like. The proof is in this match because Charlotte won. And while Bliss has her crazy fanbase of casual fans, there are many casual fans and also so called smart fans alike who think Charlotte is a wrestling god and the best female wrestler to ever exist which is so unbelievably far from the truth. It’s unbelievable what people will buy just because WWE sells it to them as such. It’s amazing that for years smart fans booed Cena and hated him more than anything, and now they do that with Roman – but Charlotte and Alexa are pushed in the exact same way that they push Cena and Roman and you don’t hear a peep about it from the masses. Alexa is starting to just a little bit, but for the most part – people continue to think Charlotte is god and that Alexa is somehow underrated. And if I had a dollar for every time I heard a female wrestler from the past go on a podcast and answer the “If you could have one more match who would it be with” with Charlotte, or any former WWE star say “I love what they’re doing with the women – with Charlotte” as if Charlotte had anything really to do with building this division, or just any former wrestling star in general go out of their way to kiss Charlotte’s ass – I’d be fucking rich. And that’s why there’s no post about Charlotte – because that would be a lost cause. And I would like to believe Bliss could be saved – that she could be sent back to NXT where she could actually learn what else she needs to to be a worthwhile member of the roster and actually have the good matches her fans so blindly think she already has. But she won’t.

And that’s why this post happens for her – because it’s almost a wish to save her before it’s too late. But, since it won’t – enjoy Bliss while you have her, Blissfits.

Because she won’t be here forever. Charlotte is around because of the same reasons as Alexa is, plus the family name nepotism. Vince saw Alexa and said “Oh a hot blonde, that’s my girl” without actually looking at her ability – because he doesn’t care about that. He never has, he never will. The thing is, when Vince dies, the Charlotte nepotism will continue because Triple H still loves her and would never do anything to upset his best friend Ric.

But Triple H values talent more often then not. And while he’s blinded to Charlotte’s lack of talent because of his friendship with Ric, he’s not blinded to Alexa’s. What did Alexa do in NXT? Mostly nothing. She had some matches, but she was mostly a valet to Blake and Murphy. They played up her strengths – facial expressions, character, and mic work – and hid her deficiencies by not having her wrestle that often. And when she did it was mostly in mixed tags or other tag matches where she wasn’t in the ring constantly. Triple H knows what she’s good and bad at – and when Vince dies, guess whose push dies? Alexa’s.

Um…..Nothing?

So after Survivor Series, which was on November 17th, I was wondering why Alexa’s Wiki was completely blank about anything she did up until Elimination Chamber – which I know she had a feud with Asuka which we’ll get to – but since I know that started on Christmas Raw, that still left everything between November 18th and December 25th. And I remember now, and in partial thanks to ProFightDB.com, that Alexa Bliss did absolutely nothing between this time. She wasn’t injured but she also had a grand total of zero televised matches. She may have been on commentary for some matches but she did absolutely nothing. You know who else spent a month doing fuck all as champion? Well, Brock Lesnar most recently (and he’s gotta go because we need a world champ), but let’s see….I don’t know….is it Nikki Bella? Oh, yea, it was Nikki Bella, when she didn’t defend the title for over a month but was still somehow champion despite the 30 day rule. And even if she’s not defending the title – you mean to tell me that the champion of your women’s division is not going to compete for over a month when she is not injured and you are having weekly tv shows? You can’t tell me there’s not something wrong there – because legitimately any other women’s champion not named Alexa Bliss would be having matches at least every other week. Even Nikki regularly competed despite not defending the title according to the rule.

Asuka

So once Christmas hit, there was basically no one left for Alexa besides Asuka. Asuka, the then undefeated killer from NXT. Asuka, that wrestler that I couldn’t buy Alexa lasting in a ring with for more than a minute. To Asuka, Alexa is a fly that – if wrestling was real – Asuka would swat away in about 19 seconds and never have to hear from again. But that’s not what happens in WWE because matches are choreographed, obviously.

What’s funny is that, after the first segment between Asuka and Alexa, where Asuka kicked her face off, I read a Blissfit so ignorantly say that he had to witness Alexa be “fed” to Asuka. This is like that Nikki “carried” Paige thing again.

Here’s some more wrestling terminology for idiots:

To feed a wrestler to another is to have a superior wrestler get destroyed by an inferior one to make the inferior one look strong. It’s like when they suddenly pushed Ryback against CM Punk – Punk was being fed to Ryback. That’s how it works. So, in this instance, that statement means Asuka was inferior to Alexa Bliss. Which, as you can probably tell, is hysterically stupid to literally anyone who knows anything about wrestling. You want to know why?

Okay, say it with me guys:

Talent. Is. Objective!

Good. I’m glad you remembered. I shouldn’t have to explain that to people, but apparently there are people who do not realize this.

Now that the second wrestling terminology lesson is over, we get back to the regularly scheduled program.

So, the next week, Alexa has one of two matches with Asuka. And what should have essentially been the same as their segment from the week prior – Asuka immediately kicks Bliss’s face off and wins in seconds – we get a long and drawn out match. It was somewhat boring, to be honest. And I’m sitting here thinking, like most of us – Bliss is really having a bad match with Asuka. And I just don’t know how that happens – because outside of squash matches against Dana Brooke, all of Asuka’s other matches are at least good – except arguably the most recent one with Carmella, but that was definitely better than the Bliss match. If you can’t have a good match with Asuka you probably should be in developmental learning your craft.

Anyways, Asuka wins, so naturally she has a right to have a title match whenever she wants to, but instead of using that, she just goes to the Rumble and wins the Rumble – because apparently even though she beat the champion and had a better undefeated streak than Goldberg’s, she still needed to win a Royal Rumble to have the right to face Alexa Bliss at WrestleMania. Which of course, she didn’t even choose Alexa to face – which I guess is good because again, I’d want something more than a nineteen second squash at Mania and that’s what Asuka/Alexa would have had to have been to be believable. But what we got was way worse for both brand’s women’s titles.

Elimination Chamber and WM34 Alternatives

So after the Rumble, they decided to play the “Who is Asuka going to face at Mania?” game and it started to come out that they wanted to do Alexa vs. Nia and Charlotte vs. Asuka, two matches no one in their right mind could want. There was no reason to do Charlotte vs. Asuka when Charlotte vs. Becky was sitting there ready to happen, and, after Sasha and Asuka had the best WWE women’s match of the year the night after the Rumble, it’d be literally insane of them not to do that at Mania.

Unfortunately, as we know, WWE is insane. They would rather torture us with awful matches between Alexa and Nia then actually good wrestling matches that we actually want – basically because WWE hates us and has a mediocre white blonde problem.

It just doesn’t make any sense at all – you have some of the best wrestlers in the world in Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch and both are stuck in a preshow battle royal because you feel the need to put focus on Alexa Bliss, Charlotte, and Nia Jax – all of which barely even belong on the main roster as it is.

So we go into the Elimination Chamber match where basically Sasha and Bayley do all of the work (as always) while Alexa (naturally) comes out last and does literally like, three things and wins. She did a flip off the chamber which apparently is enough for her fans to think she did something worthy of praise – so, I guess if we’re giving out participation awards, Alexa is truly the goddess of them.

Nia Jax

So, we move on to the god awful Nia Jax feud. The feud between two people I don’t like – and one where I’m basically forced to root for Alexa even though her title reign has been going on far too long at this point and needed to end months ago – and yet I have to root for continued boredom over an even bigger dumpster fire.

And honestly, there’s no better description of the beginning of this feud than the related comments from my WrestleMania predictions post:

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAThis is the best thing they can come up with for the women’s title HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAWhat a fucking joke. “Hi we’re WWE and we care about our women and here’s this title match between mediocrity and trash” aka Alexa “I think getting rid of Net Neutrality is a good idea and I won a match with a slap so clearly I’m actually a good wrestler even though I’m afraid to take a bump” Bliss and Nia “I’m gonna walk out of the company because I lost to someone who can actually wrestle. Also I’m related to the Rock” Jax. Good God. WHY? WHY DO YOU HATE YOUR FANS WWE? WHY ARE YOU INSULTING OUR INTELLIGENCE THAT THIS WAS THE BEST WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH YOU CAN COME UP WITH? LMAO FUCK OFF. “HI WE’RE WWE AND WE CARE ABOUT OUR WOMEN BUT HERE’S OUR MEDIOCRE CHAMPIONS WHILE OUR GOOD WOMEN ARE STUCK ON THE PRESHOW IN A BATTLE ROYAL.” Anyways, now that that’s over, for now – this is trash and you know you’re fucking up when you make me root for someone as mediocre as Bliss. So am I supposed to feel bad for Nia? Because I don’t. I don’t need to have my awareness raised to fatshaming because I don’t fatshame people – I’m normal and don’t need to be told I shouldn’t call people bad names. I don’t care about who Nia is, what she looks like, etc. Fact remains she’s bad at her job so until she improves, she doesn’t belong being the champion. This should be on the preshow. Anyways, as much as I’m going to hate Jax as a champion, I’m going to laugh at the sorry Alexa stans when their mediocre hero loses to basically the worst possible option that isn’t Many Rose – and quite honestly, Alexa fans deserve it not only for their insane notion that Alexa is actually a good wrestler just because she has decent mic skills, but because they also think this match is a “dream match” even though for something to be a dream match, it needs to be between two good wrestlers – and this match doesn’t even have one.”

That was the nice version of that rant.

So, the match happens at Mania and naturally it was awful. Literally the only way to do it right was a squash match. Instead they wasted all of our time in a ten minute long, awful match – the worst match on the show and one of the worst women’s matches ever on Mania. It’s really sad that they think this is what quality wrestling is.

So now the title is finally off of Alexa – which should be a good thing – but it went on to someone worse. So naturally they get a rematch at Backlash and in doing so, Bliss cuts promos painting Nia as a bully. They have another terrible match at Backlash and Nia retains.

Nia moves on to have an inexplicable feud with Ronda Rousey. You remember that problem with Alexa’s promos where everything she says about her opponents comes true? Well, Nia immediately starts bullying her opponents, proving Alexa right and continuing to make her an ineffective heel.

Money in the Bank/Ronda Rousey

After this feud ended, she got entered into the Money in the Bank match. That in itself is not a problem. As much as she is mediocre, she is credible and there should be people with credibility in the match. The problem was that they had three clones of her in the match too, in Charlotte, Natalya, and Lana. It’s a surprise that Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke weren’t in it so they could have as many mediocre white blondes in the match as possible. Hell, throw in Carmella and Lacey Evans – it’d be the Vince McMahon dream match. Still, they should have replaced Natalya with Bayley and Lana with Peyton Royce. And to be completely honest Alexa should have been Ruby Riott and Charlotte should have been Billie Kay.

The problem was that they actually gave Alexa Bliss the briefcase. They marketed the MITB match as a match that could “change your life” and the winner was the one who’d been champion for basically all of the past year – and hadn’t been out of the title picture more than six weeks before this happened. And then, not only that, but the blind morons that the Chicago fans have become since CM Punk left, they actually cheered this because they’ve bought the mediocre trash that WWE is trying to sell them, and cheered again when she won the title back from Nia. I’ve been ashamed to be a part of the Chicago crowd for a while now, but this was the cherry on top. Chicago is supposed to be a “smart town” but they’ve been pretty dumb as fuck recently – it’s like we’re suddenly a moronic conservative crowd from the south or something.

In that moment, it was like watching a revolution dying….to thunderous applause.

(It wasn’t really thunderous when you watch it back, but when you’re actually in the crowd, it’s hard not to think it is. While the Chicago crowd is full of idiots, at least the internet has started to figure it out a bit more now that the sparkle of Alexa seems to have worn off on them.)

And now they’re moving on to have her feud with Ronda Rousey at SummerSlam – because when people thought “OMG Ronda Rousey is here” they were totally waiting for her to feud with…..Alexa Bliss? LOL. Ronda will need to be carried and you can’t be carried by someone WHO NEEDS TO BE CARRIED! Put Ronda in the ring with people who are proven in the ring like Asuka or Becky or Sasha. Because good lord no one wants to see the shit show that Ronda vs. Alexa is going to be.

Now that the feuds are over, a small reprieve.

I guess maybe I should take a moment to explain why this matters so much to me, because you may be wondering “Why is this rando spending all this time writing such a long post about women’s wrestling in WWE – aren’t you used to this?”

Well, for me personally, after CM Punk left, there was a big void left because my favorite was gone. If one were to have read my blog for years (which like maybe one person has), they’d see that this was a tough time for me as a wrestling fan, and while I still watched weekly, I kind of floundered around for a bit trying to figure out who the next heir to the throne of “My favorite wrestler” would go to after Punk left. For a while I thought it’d be Dean Ambrose, then I thought it would be Finn Balor, and then I thought it would be Kevin Owens – and while I do love those guys – they all fell just short of hitting that mark. But what picked me up was the women’s revolution – I’d always enjoyed women’s wrestling since the time I started watching, but we know WWE’s history when it comes to women so I don’t need to go on about it. And when I finally saw the potential of what WWE could do if they, you know, tried, I got behind it full force. I cried after four Takeover matches from what these four were able to do. I became a huge fan of Sasha Becky and Bayley throughout 2015 – and while they’ve all played hot potato with who I love most between the three of them, over time Sasha Banks has leaped over both as not just my favorite of the three, and not just my favorite female wrestler, but she is my favorite wrestler period. (Becky is close behind.) And unfortunately, where Sasha, Becky, and Bayley have worked hard (among several others) to build and carry this division and revolution on their backs, it’s crap like the Charlotte and Alexa Bliss pushes that show how much farther there really is to go – because right now we’ve reached the “WWE has done something and wants you to kiss their ass because of it, even though all they really did was push the worst of the talent to the moon while they fed them the good talent – and in doing so managed to blind countless people into thinking these overhyped blondes that still 100% fit the mold of women from the diva era are actually good” point of the revolution. Or, I should say, regressing back to where we were before it. Alexa Bliss and Charlotte are the torchbearers of the death of the revolution. I haven’t felt this kind of pain since CM Punk left, and I refuse to just allow that to happen.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

Let’s Do theMath

WWE really doesn’t deserve me going easy on them for this. If they’re going to push the fact that they “care about women’s wrestling now” then I will hold them to the standard that that statement makes me expect of them. It makes me expect no less than the best women’s wrestling – the best women’s wrestlers having quality storylines and great matches. That means that I expect them to push the talent they have in accordance to their level of skill. Triple H for the most part gets this right in NXT. I expect the same from the main roster. But right now they absolutely do not push people based on merit/their actual ability.

In an age where WWE wants you to believe that they care about women’s wrestling instead of having women to attract the male gaze, they still don’t. They pretend so that they look good while really only caring about white blonde women who are marginally better than women from years past. That’s how we end up with mediocre talents like Charlotte, Alexa Bliss, Natalya, Lana, Mandy Rose, and Dana Brooke (Exceptions to the rule: Ronda and Nia) winning literally everything they don’t deserve or getting pushes long before they’re ready while their vastly superior coworkers Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch, Bayley, Asuka, Ember Moon, Ruby Riott, the IIconics, and more get crumbs.

And it’s not like I’m just spouting off some bullshit, either. It’s provable. Not only is talent objective, but their popularity among fans is quantifiable. Just look at everyone’s social media followers just on Twitter alone:

So according to social media we should be pushing people in that order, however we do need to account for a couple of things. One, the women at the bottom have been on the main roster for a short amount of time and they only have a small follower base because of that. In a year they’ll be around where Bliss/Carmella are. Also, the asterisks are for women who gain followers not just from wrestling but from Total Divas/Total Bellas which doesn’t count because they are not a wrestling audience. It’s the only reason the Bellas are at 3.56 million – otherwise they’d be at about half of that if they’d stuck to just being wrestlers because that’s where everyone else is at. (See also, Natalya at 2.1 million – she would definitely not be over a million without them. And everyone on Total Divas would lose at least 25% of their following had they not been on it.) Also, Ronda Rousey brought that following from UFC and thus doesn’t count. We ware talking about wrestlers who are popular because of wrestling. (The only female wrestler that’s past two million because of solely wrestling is A.J. Lee who has 5 million – but take into account a portion who followed because “CM Punk’s wife” because sexism and also from her book – but even that was about her wrestling career.)

So you want to push people according to their popularity and their wrestling? Well guess who the clear favorite is? Sasha Banks, naturally. And the other four horsewomen are behind her.

But who do they push the most? Well here’s everyone’s total time as champion on the main roster, as compared to significant and/or combined title reigns of other female wrestlers since 2013. These stats are as of June 30th.

Calculated by: (Number of combined days as champion)/(Total number of days on the main roster, excluding time gone for injuries or other time off)

So, even though clearly Sasha and Bayley are far more popular than Alexa Bliss is, they’ve been champion far less of their main roster careers where Alexa has been the champion the vast majority of her time. Charlotte has been the champion the majority of her time as well, but – to be fair – Charlotte would be above her in terms of percentage if they started at the same time. (Taking a full 365 days out of Charlotte’s time puts her at a whopping 87% As much as this post is about Alexa, again, do keep in mind that Charlotte will always be an even bigger problem.)

Match Quality

Now, despite all of our different preferences for whom we like and whom we don’t, we’re all wrestling fans. So, when it’s all said and done, that means that, in spite of any and all division between us, that we all enjoy good wrestling matches, right? And regardless of who we like, we shouldn’t have such a divide regarding whether a match is good or not. I’m not really one who is big on star ratings and I think Dave Meltzer is a snob that should always be taken with a grain of salt (even though sadly his ratings will be a part of this post in a bit), but a match in itself is what it is. An opinion on it may vary, but if it’s well regarded as good or bad then a rating that’s on the complete opposite end of the spectrum is likely from some kind of bias for or against someone in the match. For example, tons of people hate on Roman – for valid reasons – but while some of his matches (like the Jinder match and his matches with Brock) are very bad, not all of them are. So saying “All Roman matches are trash” is completely biased and false, even though there are people who will say that because they hate him so much.

So when I see an Alexa Bliss match, and basically each one of them is at most decent, I shouldn’t be seeing “Oh her match with Nia Jax was outstanding.” But most of her fans seem to think her matches are amazing. And I just don’t understand. I thought we were all wrestling fans and thus we should be able to know what a good match is and vice versa.

But they are blind to many problems, it seems.

Remember how I said that once in NXT, Alexa screwed up and didn’t put her hands down so that her face slammed on the mat and she broke her nose? Well, that apparently traumatized her so badly now that she refuses to take a bump.

Now, there’s a number of botch gifs in here too, but I’m not so much talking about those as I am about the numerous instances in this thread where someone goes to kick her or to slam her and she flat out falls down or moves out of the way to avoid taking the bump. She falls down well before taking a dropkick from Asuka, a Big Boot from Charlotte, and instead of taking the Press Slam from Nia, she decides to fall onto her feet first and then fall over and thinking we’ll just ignore the fact that she landed on her feet. Instead of falling onto the floor from the top rope, she rolls off the rope and onto the apron and then onto the floor.

I thought this business was called PROFESSIONAL wrestling. If you’re going to be booked as a brand’s champion for so long, and thus, for all intents and purposes be, in their eyes, its top star of the brand, the least you can do is ACTUALLY BE A PROFESSIONAL. You have other wrestlers in the division nearly killing themselves every night to put on an entertaining show and then you have Alexa who won’t take a simple dropkick without falling too early. Do your job, Alexa.

And the worst one is the gif where she moves out of the way of Naomi’s moonsault to not take the impact (not because she was supposed to counter, but because she wanted to take as little impact as possible), she causes Naomi to land on her knees and sustain an injury. What a professional. I really hate blaming wrestlers for other wrestlers getting injured because 99% of the time its unfounded and full of bias, but in all of the other cases it was between two professionals who TOOK THE BUMP THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO TAKE. Alexa even manages to do this wrong.

Alexa even knows she has a problem with bumping because fans call her out on Twitter for needing to learn how to bump and she tells them “I WILL WHEN YOU DO.” That statement, regardless of what it means to a fan, means she KNOWS she needs to learn how to bump. And apparently she won’t learn until the wrestling fan does – even though the wrestling fan is not currently planning on learning how to wrestle so she has no need to, meanwhile Alexa is the WOMEN’S CHAMPION – meaning it is her JOB to both know how to take a bump, and actually take them. She later tweets that “You must HATE that your champion can’t wrestle” even though literally no one in the crowd during the match she just had chanted that she couldn’t wrestle – so she herself just said that she can’t wrestle without prompt.

If you’re as committed to this job as you claim to be, this is not how you act – not in the ring and not when facing justified criticism. If you aren’t a finished product you have no right to be a five time champion.

And not only that, but she also decides to get a tattoo two days before she has a big ladder match that just maybe she might have to do something in – especially since you are winning – but you get a tattoo and thus can only take minimal bumps because of it. Or she has a surgical procedure done but still goes out to the ring for tag matches and promptly never tags in. If you want these tattoos or surgeries that’s cool – do what you want with your body, you have 100% authority over that – but just wait until after you have the big match so you can actually participate in it to your fullest capability. If everyone else in your division is busting their ass for scraps, you bet your ass that you’d better be doing the same and more to be champion as long as you have been.

And to go along with match quality, some more empirical evidence for you. Now, again, the opinion of Dave Meltzer is taken way too seriously on the internet, but for two reasons we are using his star ratings. For one, the vast majority of wrestling fans put tons of stock into his ratings – I’m in the minority – so while I don’t care about him, sadly his ratings are relevant. And, more importantly, I need a consistent list of ratings for matches from one person – I need this list because I want a list of matches judged the same way as all of the others because getting ratings from different people can vary. I might judge a match differently than you – based upon different criteria – and come to different conclusions. (Although those conclusions should still be similar.) And while I would rather use someone else’s ratings if I could, Meltzer’s are both taken in high regard and also readily available.

Now I’m not going to give a list of all of her matches and all of her coworkers for comparison like I did earlier. I don’t have the time. But, this you can do on your own if you want to see the ratings in front of you. I’ve already looked at them for what I have to say. If you want to see for yourself, go to http://www.profightdb.com and search Alexa Bliss and then click star ratings, and it will bring up all of her major PPV matches and/or any other match Meltzer rated. You can also search other women in the company and do the same.

Alexa’s highest one on one rated match is 3.25 stars – against Bayley at Payback. (Ironically of all the matches listed, I actually agree that’s probably the best one.) Meanwhile, Sasha, Bayley, Becky, Charlotte, Asuka, and Ember Moon have all had matches at and above four stars. So don’t try to tell me Alexa is a better wrestler than them because certainly she’d at least have one if she was capable of them. (One on one, don’t try to bring up a multi person match because they can be attributed to far more factors than just two people in the ring. Chamber and MITB are higher than 3.25 but you can’t pinpoint the reason for that on Alexa, significantly.)

We already talked about the fact that Alexa’s promos on her opponents always turn out to be right, but to go along with that, her lack of bumping is also a major factor in why she never gets her comeuppance. Both of those make her unable to get the face over, and make her an ineffective heel. That and the fact that people blindly cheer her for being attractive because they’re being fooled by a pair of wrestling trunks.

Also, Alexa is far more fitting to be a champion in the divas era – aka the dark ages.

So, Alexa is in fact champion just because Vince thinks she’s good looking. And she’s a carbon copy of what we’d see back before we had this revolution. Unfortunately while they decided to regress and put this diva level shit on our screens, the rest of us have moved past this and will not go back to the stone age.

Because, like it or not, we are moving forward. There isn’t room for people who take after the Bellas or the Kelly Kellys because, unlike what many ignorant people (including Alexa herself), not every woman that’s ever been in the company paved the way forward for the women of today. Alundra Blaze, Jacqueline, Ivory, Chyna, Trish, Lita, Victoria, Beth, Molly Holly, Mickie and A.J. Lee paved the way forward for the women of today. Meanwhile the Kelly Kellys and Candice Michelles and the Bellas have been trying to pull us backwards throughout this time.

When the onset of the Women’s Revolution, WWE made the fans a promise – whether they are aware of it or not remains to be seen – but the promise remains. They said that there was a revolution themselves, and that means that they would start taking women’s wrestling seriously. (Something they should have done from day one.) What that means to us, the fans, is clearly different from what they had in mind. We expected quality storylines and matches showcasing the best their women’s division had to offer, meanwhile what they had in mind was continuing to push their chosen few – only this time the chosen were marginally better than years past – and put them in gimmick matches so they could shove the words “history making” down our throats, while the most talented women on the roster are used to make the chosen few look good because those golden girls can’t do it on their own.

Well, it’s high time that we as a collective start holding WWE accountable for their screwups, because they’ve been pushing this Revolution for several years now but have been sabotaging it since day one. And again, it’s important to note, that Alexa is part of a larger problem – and once you cure this symptom of said problem, we can move on to the next. They continue to choose talent from looks and/or family relations and not the ones who’ve been busting their ass for years to become the exceptional talents they are now – and then go out every night and bust their ass and give all of themselves and in some cases more every single night. Those are the women you reward with championships, big matches, and storylines – the ones that have devoted their lives to this business.

WWE has some of the best women’s wrestlers in the world on their roster, and I implore them to use them wisely while they can. Stop wasting their time or they’ll be gone and it’ll be too late when you finally realize what you had. Because it’s getting to the point where you don’t deserve them anymore. Without the talent, the women’s revolution is nothing. And I refuse to watch something that has meant a lot to me die because of the ineptitude of the company that started it.

If you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, take stock of those names – because a decade from now it will be their matches that you’ll never forget. Their talent is unmatched and they are destined to overcome any and all of WWE’s latent biases. These women are the present and the future. And, most importantly, they are the revolution, and they are why this revolution will not be killed.

The preshow matches of Andrade Cien Almas vs. Sin Cara and New Day vs. SAnitY in a tables match were fun.

The first match inexplicably saw the B Team winning the Tag Titles from the Deleters of Worlds in a boring match. It’s not that the Deleters of Worlds were great but there’s no excuse for why the tag titles aren’t on the Revival right now – so fuck off.

Rating: **

Finn Balor beat Baron Corbin in a boring match.

Rating: *1/2

Carmella retained the Women’s Title in a match where Asuka beat up Ellsworth the pinata and then lost. It was a thing. It’s a shame what they’ve done to Asuka.

Rating: *

Shinsuke Nakamura defeated Jeff Hardy in seven seconds to win the U.S. title. Then Randy Orton was the second racist to return to WWE today.

Rating: DUD

Kevin Owens defeated Braun Strowman in a cage match by Strowman tossing Owens off the top of the cage and through a table so Owens won but did he really?

Rating: **

Bludgeon Brothers defeated Hell No in what was basically a handicap match to retain the tag titles. It was fine.

Rating: **1/2

I didn’t watch Roman Reigns vs. Bobby Lashley and Alexa Bliss vs. Nia Jax but I don’t need to watch them to tell you they were awful. Also Bobby Lashley won so lmao.

A.J. Styles retained the WWE Championship in a good match – which even though Roman didn’t main event, somehow the WWE Title still didn’t.

Rating: ***

And Dolph Ziggler retained the Intercontinental Title in overtime after a typical Ironman match where someone has a lead and the other makes it up and also pins happen after moves that never cause pins otherwise and also the crowd was awful and can fuck itself. Also no returns or anything.

Rating: ***

Overall a boring show, but nothing that will piss one off like MITB had.

Honestly I’m very down on WWE main roster stuff right now so this preview is going to be very minimal – because of that and another personal health issue that I’m not going to get into right now. I don’t even have the energy to write this at the moment but it’s got to get done now. WWE hasn’t done anything to absolve themselves of the fiasco that was Money in the Bank and it doesn’t look like they will anytime soon, either.

Tables Match (Preshow)
SAnitY vs. The New Day
This is one of very few matches on this show that I’m actually looking forward to – even though I’m not that high on SAnitY. This should still be fun regardless, and I wish it was elimination.

Prediction: SAnitY

Finn Balor vs. Baron Corbin
Why is this match happening?

Prediction: Finn Balor

WWE U.S. Championship
Jeff Hardy (c) vs. Shinsuke Nakamura
This could be an interesting match I suppose. It’s not one I’m particularly looking forward to it, but I don’t have a problem with it either. It’s just disappointing that Shinsuke is just going to end up being yet another foreign wrestler holding the U.S. Title because we can’t have them as any other kind of champion apparently.

WWE World Tag Team Championship
(c) The Deleters of Worlds (c) vs. The B-Team
So The Revival is on the Raw roster but we’re saddled with this B Team bullshit? Fuck that. However, it should be a little fun to watch Bray and Bo fight each other.

Cage Match
Braun Strowman vs. Kevin Owens
Sorry that last match wasn’t worthy of any words. Anyways, the build for this has been pretty shitty.

Prediction: Braun Strowman

WWE Blue World Tag Team Championship
(c) The Bludgeon Brothers (c) vs. Hell No
Everyone seems pretty excited that Hell No is a thing again – but I didn’t care then, and I don’t care now. I’m sorry. Especially now when we don’t know how long Bryan will be around – get those matches with Andrade, Shinsuke, Rusev, AJ, and The Miz now.

Prediction: Hell No

Ironman Match for the WWE Intercontinental Championship
Dolph Ziggler (c) vs. Seth RollinsI have to assume that the reason to put the IC Title on Dolph is to ultimately put the title on Drew at SummerSlam, and to push Seth up to the Universal Title – so Dolph retains. This should be good regardless of Dolph’s irrelevance.

Prediction: Dolph Ziggler

WWE World Heavyweight Championship
A.J. Styles (c) vs. Rusev
I’m surprised Rusev is actually getting a title shot but I’m happy for him – but he’s not winning.

I’m struggling to put coherent thoughts for this show together right now because I was there and there were some non-match related annoyances I had to deal with.

The first match was Daniel Bryan vs. Big Cass, which was decent for what it was. Cass played his part well and Bryan came back and won. I’ve been loving Bryan being as aggressive as he has been lately. But, while it was good, I think we can all agree that this should be the end of this.

Then Seth Rollins defended the Intercontinental Championship against Elias in a good match. I didn’t see that Seth was selling the leg so when he first came down on it and it looked like he hurt himself, I was scared he was hurt. Thankfully this is not the case – and Seth retained as expected. The sad thing is that there were no Curb Stomps. =(

Rating: ***

Then was the women’s Money in the Bank match. I guess this match was probably what was expected of it. We expected Sasha to basically kill herself to put on the best show possible as she always does – and she did. She took the biggest bumps of all. Ember and Naomi were right behind her there, as they were the ones who stood out the most besides her. And also Becky killed it as she always does but ultimately came up short. Lana, to her credit, was very over because of Rusev. One day she’ll actually be a good wrestler, maybe. Charlotte tired to do things but as usual, she failed at them. That didn’t stop the crowd from wooing, though. Natalya and Alexa Bliss were also there. Nattie nearly killed Naomi and one point and Alexa took approximately zero bumps before she won. This is how women’s wrestling dies – to thunderous applause. I’m trying to tell myself that Alexa winning is better than the expected result of Natalya winning – because at the end of the day, Alexa Bliss is better than Natalya, Charlotte, and Lana – so obviously she’s the least terrible of the terrible choices. But it’s still terrible. (More later.)

Rating: ***

After this was Roman vs. Jinder, and I’ll be perfectly honest – I have no memory of the actual match, just the crowd being dicks. I mean, it was not unexpected, but they were atrocious. I’m honestly ashamed to be in the crowd for it. CM Punk chants, chants for everyone else imaginable, three beach balls, the wave. Awful. Fuck you, Chicago. I was already pissed off because of the terrible MITB result, but these trash fans didn’t help.

Rating: DUD

Carmella then defeated Asuka to retain the WWE Blue Women’s Championship. The match was decent – loads better than Carmella/Charlotte, proving yet again that Charlotte is bad. It was entertaining. Carmella may not be as good a talker as Bliss is, but she’s definitely better in the ring. And then James Ellsworth arrived in Asuka’s entrance gear and caused Asuka to lose, which is about the only acceptable reason. Still doesn’t forgive WWE for ending Asuka’s streak at the hands of Charlotte – should’ve been to Carmella – but that’s a different story. Also, the rightful end of Carmella’s reign now belongs to Becky.

Rating: **1/2

Next was A.J. Styles defending the WWE Title against Shinsuke Nakamura in a Last Man Standing Match. This match was really good – probably their best. I didn’t get to see this as well as I’d like because they lit the arena more for this because they went into the crowd, and one of the lights was directly in my eyes so it was hard to enjoy all of it. That said, it was very fun from what I saw through the lights, even though I’m disappointed Shinsuke lost. Still, this needs to be the end of this.

Rating: ***1/2

Nia Jax then defended her title in a meh match against Ronda Rousey but then lost it to Alexa after she interrupted and cashed in.

Rating: *

To say I’m disappointed would be an understatement. WWE sells the MITB match – specifically this women’s one – that this match could “change your life.” And what happens? They gave the MITB case to someone who was champion 69 days ago. To someone who had basically been champion since December of 2016 with very brief pauses. HOW IS THIS CHANGING SOMEONE’S LIFE? Such a slap in the face to the actually good talent they have. A slap in the face to Ember – the first of many she’ll have to endure. A slap in the face to Sasha, the definitive best woman on the Raw roster and probably the company until Io Shirai arrives. She is far and away the best, sells the most merch, has the most mainstream appeal despite WWE trying to tell you otherwise, is a role model, gives literally everyone woman on the roster their best match, and goes out of her way to sell and take the biggest bumps. That’s what the real talent does. Sasha is better than half the men on the roster as well. A lot of people give her shit because they think she “has a bad attitude” just because she stands up for herself – mostly entitled men who don’t know how to deal with confident women (even moreso, confident black women) or people who ignorantly think fans are the reasons wrestlers have jobs, not years of hard work to get to where they are. And a slap in the face to Becky, who’s been screwed out of so many things left and right and is one of the best faces in the company. But we just get mediocre blonde chick #3. Again. Even though we just did this and we all got sick of it. Plus we sat through two terrible Alexa/Nia matches already after that awful feud, and after Alexa’s awful title reign – and now we’ve just reset everything as if nothing happened. The Raw women’s division is as dead as it’s tag division.

It’s shit like this that makes me appreciate companies like Lucha Underground, New Japan, and Stardom – companies who know how to recognize and utilize their talents properly and to their fullest extent. Put WWE’s full women’s roster in LU or Stardom and Charlotte and Alexa and Natalya and Lana are at the bottom of the barrel where their talents dictate that they belong. In fact, Lana and Nia wouldn’t even be employed. They’re lucky they work for WWE where Vince just likes mediocre white blondes with fake boobs or people with more famous family members that are in the business or a famous name because most of us wise to the business can see right through them. I feel bad for Sasha, Becky, Bayley, Asuka, Ember, the IIconics, Ruby Riott, and Sarah Logan – it’s become abundantly clear that WWE will always push their pets over the real talent. And I sincerely hope Kairi and Dakota stay in NXT for as long as possible to avoid inevitable disappointment. And Toni and Io, assuming they’ve signed – I hope good things happen for them because they’re great, but I have no hope. This company let Tenille Dashwood go. It’s hard being a fan of actually talented people when WWE has no desire to push them.

I remember the women’s revolution. But the women’s revolution is dead. RIP. Honestly this is the most pain I’ve felt related to this company since Punk left.

And finally, Braun Strowman won the men’s MITB match in a really fun match. Just go watch it and enjoy a fun ladder match. I’m too tired to write more about it.

Rating: ***1/2

So, yea…that show happened. Some positives, some huge negatives. And honestly I’m just thankful for better companies that know how to recognize and utilize their real talent.

WWE Blue World Tag Team Championship
(c) The Bludgeon Brothers (c) vs. The Good Brothers
My Winners: The Bludgeon Brothers
Probable Winners: The Bludgeon Brothers
Winners, and still WWE Blue World Tag Team Champions, The Bludgeon Brothers

Tonight, WWE returned to Chicago with the second NXT Takeover from Chicago, and it was good. However, while it was good, it wasn’t as good as other NXT Takeovers. In fact, I think both Chicago Takeovers are the weakest ones of the year so far. Last year’s Chicago one is also slightly better than this one, too. That said, there are still three really good matches on this show.

The first match was the Undisputed Era defending the NXT World Tag Team Championship in a really fun match to open the show. Undisputed Era was super over and Lorcan and Burch got boos even though they were the faces – but once Lorcan’s hot tag happened they won over the crowd. And once that hot tag happened, the match kicked into high gear. Unsurprisingly, Undisputed Era retained.

Ricochet vs. Velveteen Dream was next, and as far as I’m concerned it was easily match of the night. Just a hell of a lot of fun as I was expecting. I still kind of wish Dream won, though.

Then the show took a turn. Shayna Baszler defeated Nikki Cross to retain the NXT Women’s Title in a very average match. By NXT’s standards, this is definitely one of the worst women’s title matches they’ve had, which is unfortunate. Niether woman is bad in the ring – Shayna’s not bad and is usually good against good opponents. And Nikki, while her character is terrible, is definitely good in the ring. It’s just that I had no interest in this match going in because Nikki swooped in out of nowhere and stole Dakota Kai’s storyline and Takeover title match from her – and it showed because there just wasn’t anything to this.

Aleister Black vs. Lars Sullivan for the NXT Title was better than that match, but not by much. It suffered from the same problem – I just didn’t care much about the story. It was a better match than the women’s title and it benefits from Aleister being one of my favorites so that makes it the fourth best match on the show, but it’s also one of the lesser NXT Title matches by their standards as well.

And then it picks back up with the second best match on the show – Ciampa vs. Gargano in a Street Fight. This match was great – I don’t know if it’s better than the first one, but it was great. Everything up until Ciampa tears the ring apart is great. But then, it does start to drag a bit too much for me which is why it’s the second best match to me. It drags from the point where Gargano counters the Air Raid Crash onto the exposed ring up until the second Gargano does that move to Ciampa off the crates and through a table at the top of the stage. Then it gets a little messy when Gargano brings Ciampa back to the ring – the EMTs want Gargano to stop attacking Ciampa but Ciampa’s tapping – call for the bell and announce Gargano the winner and he’ll stop right? LOL. Anyways, Ciampa DDTs Gargano off the ropes and into the exposed ring for the win. Hurray! Really good apart from the parts where it dragged.

Overall the show was really good, but compared to Philadelphia and New Orleans, it wasn’t amazing.

I remember when I found out that Money in the Bank would be in Chicago again this year and that it would be co-branded, I was very excited. Now obviously, we aren’t going to get anything as epic as the CM Punk storyline and match and title win like we did when it was here in 2011 because that story is simply not here in 2018, it would still seem like it would be impossible for them to fuck up a Money in the Bank PPV. I was wrong. Now, while there are a few things right with this card, there are a number of problems and we’ll undoubtedly get to them.

The first of which is, since I’m going to this show live, that they have robbed me of seeing several people I want to see in person. For instance, where is Andrade Cien Almas, the IIconics, Ruby Riott and the Riott Squad, Bayley, Cesaro, the Usos, the Revival, Bray Wyatt, and Drew McIntyre. I paid to see all of them, and yet on this show, they are not. Now I know what happened to at least two of them, but we’ll get to that later.

WWE Blue World Tag Team Championship
(c) The Bludgeon Brothers (c) vs. The Good Brothers
Not that there was going to be a title change, but now that this is on the preshow, there’s no way that happens.

Prediction: The Bludgeon Brothers

Daniel Bryan vs. Big Cass
Everyone was excited when Daniel Bryan returned to action, but I’m willing to bet that no one would have asked for a boring two month feud between him and Big Cass. Bryan’s already bitched him out in the first match and made him look silly on tv, so naturally since this is in Chicago, Big Cass will win. That said – I’m seeing this live – why am I being forced to sit through the undeserved push of the Janetty of Enzo and Cass? I mean, Enzo is a garbage human (he may not be a rapist but he was trash before that whole thing happened) but at least he had mic skills and could actually get people to hate him – even if his ring work left a lot to be desired. Then there’s Big Cass, who I guess he can talk a little bit, but he’s a waste of time. I could be watching Daniel Bryan vs. Samoa Joe. I could be watching Daniel Bryan vs. Andrade Cien Almas. Instead, I get generic tall guy.

Prediction: Big Cass

Bobby Lashley vs. Sami Zayn
Going over to the Raw side of things, this is the Daniel Bryan vs. Big Cass of Raw. Someone really awesome in Sami Zayn against someone I couldn’t be paid to give a fuck about. I have not paid any attention to this feud – the second I saw a “Sami invites Bobby’s sisters” segment announced, I knew it would be an abortion. So I haven’t watched anything related to it since. That said – I will say this – it’s nice that Sami finally gets what’s at least supposed to be an important one on one match on PPV. Haven’t seen that since…..I don’t even know. Unfortunately, he’ll lose, even though he deserves much better.

Prediction: Bobby Lashley

WWE Blue Women’s Championship
Carmella (c) vs. Asuka
Anyone else just pretend WrestleMania never happened and that Asuka’s the champion already as she rightly should be? There will never be any excuse for Charlotte to have won that match – anyone who tries to convince you otherwise is flat out stupid. Now we have to pretend that Carmella is a threat to Asuka – as if Asuka couldn’t flick Carmella with her finger and pin her for a ten count. That said, Carmella’s walking away with the belt in some fashion – probably by DQ.

Prediction: Asuka by DQ

WWE Women’s Championship
Nia Jax (c) vs. Ronda Rousey
Who’s ready for it? You heard me – who’s ready for one of the worst women’s championship matches in WWE history? WWE would have you believe that this is somehow the biggest women’s title matches in company history because it…….because….because, well…..because it’s a green wrestler who is the female equivalent of Big Show that isn’t even ready for the main roster against someone who has a famous name from a different sport and hasn’t paid her dues. Not to mention that we spent months sitting through the awful Nia Jax vs. Alexa Bliss feud and matches for the Women’s Title when we could have had Sasha Banks vs. Asuka for the title – you know, a match between two exceptional competitors and talents and not a match between two people who arguably don’t even belong inside of a wrestling ring – but we had to suffer through all of that where we were supposed to buy into Nia as a sympathetic face only for her to suddenly be a heel and a bully, just like Alexa had described her as. Good job, WWE. Thanks for making us suffer through all of that instead of giving us that quality feud and match from Sasha and Asuka you’d basically promised us the week after their match on tv. (Still the best WWE women’s match of the year, btw.) Not to mention, I’m supposed to buy Nia as a dominant force who won’t tap to Ronda’s arm bar even though Nia has tapped to Asuka, Becky, and Sasha…..Nice try though. And, to top it off, I’m supposed to care about mutual friend of Ronda, Natalya, getting hurt in this? When Natalya is also trash? And if MITB goes where I’m expecting, then this match could ultimately main event – and have Natalya come out the champion if she wins MITB. Whether she cashes in during the match or if she cashes in after. Utlimately, if you look at it this way – Nia/Ronda is the Roman/Brock of the women’s division. It’s Samoan person/UFC dropout only with supposed heel/supposed face swapped. That also makes Natalya Seth Rollins and me barf. Ultimately, this could go any of the three directions. It’s too early for Ronda to have the title, it’s too early for her to lose, and the belt quite honestly belongs quite far away from any of the three of them. I’m expecting Natalya to walk out of the show with the title, regardless of how she cashes in. I’ll tell you that if Natalya does win Money in the Bank, and this match does main event, I’m more than likely beating the traffic home. I don’t need to be in the arena when that terrible decision is followed through with.

Prediction: Ronda Rousey (or Natalya if she inserts herself in the match)

Roman Reigns vs. Jinder Mahal
Ha. Hahahahahahahahahaha. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Please let this main event so I can beat the traffic for this too. If this or Ronda/Nia main events (with the caveat that Natalya won MITB), I’m going home early. I like Roman Reigns despite there being many problems with how he’s presented and booked, but I will not watch a pointless feud with him and Jinder. It’s the worst possible decision they could have made. I’m 100% there for a match between Roman and a good opponent even if I know Roman’s going to win – I’m not there for Roman vs. trash that doesn’t belong on tv.

Prediction: Roman Reigns

WWE Intercontinental Championship
Seth Rollins (c) vs. Elias
This is one match they got exactly right – Seth has been on fire recently and Elias is great. I was worried he wouldn’t make it on the show. That said, Seth retains.

Prediction: Seth Rollins

Last Man Standing Match for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship
A.J. Styles (c) vs. Shinsuke Nakamura
I’m looking forward to this match – hopefully it’s the best match of their feud and I hope Shinsuke wins. Ultimately, though, I hope that they move on afterwards, no matter who wins.

Prediction: A.J. Styles

Money in the Bank Ladder Match
Sasha Banks vs. Becky Lynch vs. Ember Moon vs. Naomi vs. Alexa Bliss vs. Charlotte vs. Natalya vs. Lana
Now, I’m more interested in this match that I am the men’s – my favorite wrestler is female and she’s in this match – but this is going to be a big rant and I don’t think I want to end the post on a rant. So we’ll save the men for last. Now, just look at this picture. Look at it! See what I see? I see four clones on the left, and talent on the right. Lana through Charlotte are almost even lined up in increasing talent order but Alexa would be the most talented of the four. (You could toss Charlotte and Natalya on either side, they’re roughly equally bad.) WHY IS THERE SO MUCH WHITE BLONDE MEDIOCRITY IN THIS MATCH? It’s gotten to a point in WWE where you can judge the talent of the women by the color of their hair. If they’re blonde and on the main roster, they’re average to terrible. The only exception is Candice LeRae in NXT. And Toni Storm if she’s indeed signed. But, Charlotte and Alexa are overpushed to all hell. Charlotte has every accolade WWE could give her, even though she’s deserved none of it. Alexa Bliss is a blonde Bella Twin – except she can at least talk, so…yay? That said it took a wrestling fan on Twitter to call her out on her terrible bumping for her to even take a bump this week so…..Good job, Alexa. “….I will when you do” my ass. Natalya is all sorts of average and she’s quite probably going to win. Lana is a joke and doesn’t belong in the ring. I’ll level with you – take out Lana and Natalya and put in Ruby Riott (or Bayley) and Peyton Royce (or Billie Kay). Ideally you replace Nattie AND Alexa for Ruby AND Bayley but taking out 3 of the clones is probably pushing my luck. Anyways, I know the way this is likely going – but please don’t fail us. Giving Natalya the MITB is such a waste. Giving it to Alexa or Charlotte is pointless when they are walking MITB contracts themselves. And giving it to Lana – just fold. Give it to real talent. Sasha, Becky, Ember – I don’t care who. I won’t complain about Naomi but I’d much prefer the other three.

Prediction: Natalya

Money in the Bank Ladder Match
Finn Balor vs. Braun Strowman vs. Bobby Roode vs. Kevin Owens vs. Rusev vs. Samoa Joe vs. The Miz vs. The New Day (One Member)
While the women’s MITB has a myriad of problems, they practically made this one perfectly. The only 100% miss was Bobby Roode. Chad Gable would’ve been a better pick there. And sure, I’d have liked Andrade in it, but I have no problems with anyone that’s in it on the Smackdown side. As far as a winner goes, I’m not completely sure – but since I’m pretty sure a Raw woman will get it, I think a Smackdown man will. And I’m going to pick Samoa Joe.